Secret U.S. missile and electro-optics technology was transferred to China recently by Israel, prompting anger from the U.S. and causing a senior Israeli defense official to resign.

The head of defense exports for the Israeli Defense Ministry resigned after a U.S. investigation concluded that technology, including a miniature refrigeration system manufactured by Ricor and used for missiles and in electro-optic equipment, was sent to China, according to the Israeli newspaper Maariv.

Another Israeli news site, Aretz Sheva, reports the U.S. is concerned the technology could ultimately find its way to Iran, which last year sought to buy military equipment from China for its nuclear program.

Ricor, on its company website, identifies a number of defense programs using its miniature cryo-coolers, including UAVs, airborne enhanced vision systems, missile warning systems, hand-held thermal imagers and thermal weapons sights.

The Maariv report identified the Israeli defense official as Meir Shalit, and said he apologized to U.S. officials on a recent visit.

Israel has a long record of getting U.S. military technology to China.

In the early 1990s then-CIA Director James Woolsey told a Senate Government Affairs Committee that Israel had been selling U.S. secrets to China for about a decade. More than 12 years ago the U.S. demanded Israel cancel a contract to supply China with Python III missiles, which included technology developed by the U.S. for its Sidewinder missiles, The Associated Press reported in 2002.

This report is based on Israeli articles that I've read. Somehow, it managed to distort significantly the articles in Hebrew that it quotes:

1/ The technology of the components was not American but Israeli.
2/ The components were not sold to China, but to a French company, which sold them to China.
3/ There was a fault of the official in the MOD who authorized the deal. He authorized it without safeguards that would forbid the reexportation of the components. That's why he resigned.
EDIT:
Another inexactitude in this article: the technology of Python 3 is Israeli and is not derived from the Sidewinder.